Page 266 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

imperceptible reverse motion that the sun appears to make along the
ecliptic against the background of the fixed stars (one degree in 71.6
years, 30 degrees in 2148 years, and so on).
The sense that a correlation exists is strengthened by something else. It
is neither as firm nor as definite as the number of syllables in the
Rigveda; nevertheless, it feels relevant. Through powerful stylistic links
and shared symbolism, myths to do with global cataclysms and with
precession of the equinoxes quite frequently intermesh. A detailed
interconnectedness exists between these two categories of tradition, both
of which additionally bear what appear to be the recognizable
fingerprints of a conscious design. Quite naturally, therefore, one is
prompted to discover whether there might not be an important
connection between precession of the equinoxes and global
catastrophes.

Mill of pain

Although several different mechanisms of an astronomical and geological
nature seem to be involved, and although not all of these are fully
understood, the fact is that the cycle of precession does correlate very
strongly with the onset and demise of ice ages.
Several trigger factors must coincide, which is why not every shift from
one astronomical age to another is implicated. Nevertheless, it is
accepted that precession does have an impact on both glaciation and
deglaciation, at widely separated intervals. The knowledge that it does so
has only been established by our own science since the late 1970s. Yet
4
the evidence of the myths suggests that the same level of knowledge
might have been possessed by an as yet unidentified civilization in the
depths of the last Ice Age. The clear suggestion we may be meant to
grasp is that the terrible cataclysms of flood and fire and ice which the
myths describe were in some way causally connected to the ponderous
movements of the celestial coordinates through the great cycle of the
zodiac. In the words of Santillana and von Dechend, ‘It was not a foreign
idea to the ancients that the mills of the gods grind slowly and that the
result is usually pain.’
5
Three principal factors, all of which we have met before, are now known
to be deeply implicated in the onset and the retreat of ice ages (together,
of course, with the diverse cataclysms that ensue from sudden freezes
and thaws). These factors all have to do with variations in the earth’s
orbital geometry. They are:

1 The obliquity of the ecliptic (i.e., the angle of tilt of the planet’s axis of

Ice Ages; John Imbrie et al., ‘Variations in the Earth’s Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages’
4
in Science, volume 194, No. 4270, 10 December 1976.
5 Hamlet’s Mill, pp. 138-9.

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